What to do when temper tantrums strike

Five minutes before boarding an airplane, Louise Catrell, of Dublin, watched her restless 3-year-old son throw himself onto the floor, screaming.

The first time Shanisse Mack, of Oakland, took her daughter to church, the 2-year-old dissolved into a fit of tears and kicks when Mack tried to take away a Bible she was playing with.

Emily Adams, of San Jose, once abandoned a cart full of groceries to a store employee when she wouldn't let her 5-year-old son eat a banana. He screamed so loudly that other customers rushed to help, thinking he had injured himself.

These are the faces of temper tantrums, which usually strike children ages 1 to 4. Before motherhood, I sympathized with these moms and pledged that my child would never get away with such behavior. That's what can be described only as naiveté on my part.

My daughter Carolyn, who will soon turn 3, has developed a willful personality that recently evolved into frequent tantrums.

The worst one hit on New Year's Day. While visiting my sister-in-law's family for dinner, I insisted that Carolyn clean up the toys she had dumped on the family room carpet. The ensuing showdown landed her in timeout. When she refused to stay put, I announced that we were going home.

Her volcanic eruption was epic. She cried and screamed hysterically. She punched and kicked. She threw anything and everything within arm's reach.

Amid a lot of deep breaths and silent counting, I firmly held her in my lap and tried to shush her in a calm voice, all the while wrestling her feet into sneakers.

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Fortunately, we live across the street from my sister-in-law's house, so I didn't have to navigate the car seat. Even so, it took 20 minutes to fully calm her down and finally rock her to sleep.

Since then, I've been on a mission to better understand temper tantrums, and hopefully prevent future ones. Learning from other parents has helped a lot.

Catrell's solution for in-the-moment tantrums: “Shock them into silence,” she said. “When Ben lost it at the airport, I left the boarding line and took him to the bathroom. I wet a paper towel and patted it across his face and the back of his neck because he'd gotten puffy from crying. It had the added benefit of stunning him enough to finally quiet him. Then, I could actually talk to him about the situation.”

Mack looks for immediate distractions to diffuse daughter Olive's tantrums: “I carry a diaper bag filled with toys and treats. Any time Olive touches something I don't want her touching, out comes a toy or treat. She loves Cheerios most of all. Nine times out of 10, she forgets why she was upset when she sees the Cheerios.”

Adams says the trick is also to deny children an audience.

“The more people who responded to my son Dylan's temper tantrum in the store, the more vocal he became. As soon as we left the store and I put him in the car, it's like the energy went out of him. I'd seen enough of his tantrums to know ignoring him would eventually stop them.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics also offers these suggestions for dealing with temper tantrums:

Stay calm: A parent's anger can fuel a child's frustrations.

Try a timeout: This gives the child a chance to calm down in a space separate from where the tantrum began.

Offer comfort: Respond to negative reactions such as kicking and screaming with hugs and soothing words to show a child positive responses.

Prevent tantrums before they start: Children who are tired, hungry and overwhelmed are more prone to tantrums. Disruptions to their routines can be too much for them to handle. They also don't understand why they can't have something that they want right now. Picking your battles is key.

I tried one of these ideas recently when Carolyn geared up for a tantrum while we were shopping. I dropped to my knees and blew in her face. She was so stunned, she instantly stopped crying. When I laughed, she blew back in my face, thinking it was a game.

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